Saving the Soldier
by FanndisLokidottir
Summary: <html><head></head>When the Winter Soldier travels to the Smithsonian Captain America exhibit, he didn't leave alone. A strange orphaned 13 year old girl takes him in, revealing that he's not as alone as he thinks he is. Brother-sister relationship between Bucky and OC. Rated T due to paranoia and possible violence in future chapters. Doesn't include Captain America yet, he will come in around Ch. 5</html>
1. Saved

**Author's Note:** Hello! Saving the Soldier is my second fanfiction piece, and it has been bouncing around inside my noggin for a while, so it should flow smoothly for at least a couple of chapters. It starts during the post credits scene of Marvel's Captain America: the Winter Soldier, when James "Bucky" Barnes is in the Captain America exhibit of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. As usual, constructive criticism is always welcome, as are all expressive reviews. It is in Third Person Limited unless otherwise marked.

I do not own anything from any published works.

Captain America Exhibit, The Smithsonian

A tall, well-built man wearing dark clothes stood alone, facing the James Buchanan Barnes display in the Captain America exhibit. His long hair, reaching the base of his neck, was tucked behind his ears under an old-looking, old but plain black baseball cap, which shadowed his unshaven face and haunted eyes.

He was do absorbed in the exhibit that, in spite of years of conditioning, a young teenager came to stand next to him without his notice.

The young girl, of almost fourteen years, wore a navy blue and white striped sweater, black jeans, navy blue converse with a skull design on each side, and an orange, grey, black, and white scarf. A black messenger bag with green designs was slung across her chest. Her dark brown hair, which reflected several shades of red and brown in the soft lighting of the exhibit, hung loose around her shoulders and framed her heart-shaped face and dark eyes. She bore a striking resemblance to Loki in her facial structure, but the colors were all wrong, making the similarities difficult to notice.

They stood there side by side, a foot apart, one reading and rereading the information on the glass panel, the other contemplating how to approach the private and dangerous-looking man, in quiet companionable silence for several minutes until the youth had gathered enough courage to speak. She took a deep, shuddering breath and exhaled, knowing that a wrong move could scare away her prey, but that the quiet sound of her breath and the shift in the air would alert him to her presence. She relaxes her body to make herself seem as harmless and unthreatening as she can.

The dark man's eyes, which had been slowly moving over the text, sped up fractionally to be able to see the newcomer put of the corner of his eye. Carefully, he catalogued every detail about her that he knew, from the colors and pattern of her bright scarf to the introverted and shy personality that her stance suggested.

Suddenly, she turns her head to look at him as if for the first time, and then she shifts her stance to fully face him. He turns to look at her, seeing that she intends to make a comment about something. However, instead of a comment about the display, the young woman respectfully bows her head and gives a quiet, but friendly little "Hi."

Hiding his surprise, he nods back, returning the small greeting, but in an emotionless voice. The girl, seeing and hearing his response, surruptitiously looks around to make sure that no one is watching them, then tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, making a gesture for him to follow her as she raises and lowers her hand. She then turns to the picture of J. Barnes, gives a salute with a little smile, then turns and quickly walks in a casual way to a dark corner of the exhibit. Curious, the dark man follows.

The girl leads him out of the exhibit, and into the crowded main halls of the Smithsonian. He catches up with her, and she puts her arm in his, leaning towards his ear and whispering "We are friends because my parents met you at work, and I have been out of town for a week. I just came back, and I have told you about a funny little story that I will finish later, so chuckle and nod."

The girl leans away from his ear, smiling, and the man decides to play along. He chuckles as believably as he can, and then nods as if in understanding of a private joke. Trying to tell the man to follow her while also informing him more about their cover story, she says: "Come on, Jamie, let's come back to my place for lunch so that I can tell you about my trip to London!" The man hides his surprise and sudden suspicion, caused by the use of a shortened version of his nickname, and then replies.

"Okay. I'm not doing anything next, so lead the way."

Then, the girl begins leading him outside, and hails a taxicab. "720 W. Carson Street." After a half hour's drive to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., they arrive at a light blue, two floor house, with a front yard that has a tiled pathway leading to a white door with a brass doorknob. The girl pays for the taxi, and they get out.

The girl looks around again, and then slips the key into the lock. She opens the door, and leads the man inside. The foyer is plain, with cream colored walls, a dark blue rug, a wooden bench with shoes under it and hooks above it, and a mirror across from the bench.

After the man had stepped inside, the girl took off her shoes, and put them under the bench. Then, she took off her jacket, and hung both her jacket and messenger bag on the wooden hooks. Then, she looked at her guest expectantly. The man, deciding to follow her example, toed off his shoes, but had to put them next to the bench because there wasn't anymore room underneath it. Silently, the girl led him to what appeared to be a living room/dining room, sat down in an armchair, and signaled for him to take a seat in either the couch or the other armchair.

Choosing the armchair, he looked around the room and memorized all of the important details and exit strategies. A quiet clearing of the throat, which sounded loud in the silent house, brought his attention back to the teenager that had brought him here. In a polite voice that had an edge to it, the dark man spoke for the first time.

"What is your name? Who are you, and why did I attract your attention?"

The girl gave him a strange look. Now that he really looked at her, without having to appear as if he weren't, he saw that she had dark green highlights in her hair, which stood out in the bright daylight compared to the rest of her hair, which flowed like a river with a copper riverbed, reflecting dark browns, deep crimson, with little streaks of auburn.

But what stood out were her eyes. Her right eye was midnight blue with dark green edging around the pupil, and the lift eye was a bright yellow, with a milk chocolate brown ring around the pupil. They gave her a sophisticated, distant look that made her seem to see not only you, but your soul and past, too. They stared straight into his eyes for a moment, before the girl tilted her head left. "You don't know anything about anyone, do you? Nothing but names and memories that don't even feel like they're yours."

The perfect description made the girl's guest tense. It seems that the girl saw this, because she quickly continued. "Your eyes give you away. Mine have always let me know who I can and cannot trust. Yours show a man who was already lost, but someone gave him a tiny piece of a map of the labyrinth, that led you deeper than ever before."

He didn't know why, but the way the girl had looked at him, the emotions in her mismatched eyes gave him the impression that she was speaking from experience. He shifted slightly in his seat. If the girl noticed this, she didn't comment.

"To answer your questions, James Buchanan Barnes," she continues, using his full name and making him start, "Yes, I know your name and who you are, Winter Soldier, but that didn't matter to me when I saw you in the Smithsonian. As I said before, your eyes and mine led me to you."

"Your first question, what is my name, is simple: I am Jacqueline Hela Jackson, but call me Hela. Your last question, I have already answered." Hela sat forward, with her arms crossed, el ows resting on her knees. "The question of who I am, though, is a very good question, one which I have tried to answer for more than two years now."

James sat forward, wondering where this was going. He looked at her with an unspoken request for her to finish her story.

"I woke up twenty years ago in the scene of a car crash with no memory, floating 4 feet off the ground, with orbs of flames and water floating around me. No one saw, because the road was in the countryside. Apparently, the couple in the car wreck were incredibly wealthy and had no will, no other family, and so it was assumed that I was their child. Every possession and dollar they owned went to me, a girl who knew nothing of the world."

Hela heaved a sigh that spoke of a thousand years' pressure on her shoulders, strong but tired. The shadows under her eyes seemed to darken. "A girl who has spent everyday since researching, teaching myself to hack and sneak into places so that one day, I could figure out who I am."


	2. Settling In

**Author's Note:** Hello again, everybody! Sorry about the long wait, but I've been reading a lot of fanfictions recently, and my school's science fair is coming up. I'm trying to update more now, but it's going to be a little hard because I'm trying to have longer chapters.

I'm also in an extra class in school, so I have extra homework. Why did I agree to going to extra algebra classes? I already have them in school!

Anyways...Enjoy!

* * *

><p>"Okay, so do you want to go to shopping now, or do you want the tour of the house now?" Hela turned to James, her eyebrow raised, hands on her hips, the perfect picture of a teenager waiting for an answer. James stood, thinking, and then decided on the tour. He told her.<p>

"The tour it is." Hela turned and led him down the hall. She opened all of the doors, then pointed at the first door on the left. "This is the bathroom." She moved her hand to gesture to the next door on the left. "This is the kitchen." Hela continued to move her hand to the right, each time naming the room in the hallway with five doors and a stairway. "My office, the den, both of which are restricted, the dining room, which is never used, and the stairs leading up."

Hela led James upstairs, to the second and more private floor. "This floor has two suites, a master and a guest. Yours is the second to last one on the right, if you need me, I'm the last in the right. I have a library, which is across from my room. You are free to use anything in the library, but ask if you want something from the glass cases because those require special care. The door across from your room leads to a deck that overlooks the backyard.

"Feel free to get food from the kitchen at anytime, but leave a note when you want something specific, like coffee or hot sauce; you can eat anywhere but the library, and try not to leave a mess. If you do, tell me so I can clean it up."

Hela turned back to James. "Anything you want before we go out shopping?" Seeing James's affirmative nod, she smiled. "Excellent. Let's go fill your wardrobe." Suddenly, James had an ominous felling, and a shiver made its way up his spine. Hela didn't look as pleasant as she did before shopping was mentioned.

* * *

><p><span>Several Hours Later:<span>

James and Hela stumbled into the house, arms hidden under the mass of shopping bags. Hela was grinning like a fool, and James had a slightly wild look in his eyes. _Never again, _he thought._ I am never going clothes shopping with that girl ever again. _They made their way up the stairs, and Hela barely made it into James's room before she dropped the bags. James, following Hela's lead, set his bags down just inside the doorway.

He looked around his room, taking in the soft white walls and curtains, and the dark mahogany furniture. A full sized bed sat in a corner of the room, positioned so that the sun from one of the tall, arched windows would fall onto the bed, lighting up the whole bed and giving the room a bright mood. However, in the dark of the evening and the lack of light pollution in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., the room was light by the lamps strategically placed around the room. James yawned.

"Oh! Sorry, you're probably tired now." Hela rummaged through one of the shopping bags, and pulled out a loose long sleeve shirt and sweatpants. "Here," she tossed them to James, who reflexively caught them. "Change, and go to sleep. No buts, its 9:00 PM, and you've had a long day. I'll check back in about ten minutes, but feel free to give a shout or wake me up if you ever need anything. See ya!"

Hela made her way out the door, closing it with a click behind her. James quickly strode over, checking to make sure that he wasn't locked in. Finding the door unlocked and the hallway empty, he locked the door from the inside and changed his clothes. He then began to study his room more closely, and memorized the layout of the room.

The walls were a soft white, one wall covered in windows that had cushions on the sills. A large, dark wooden desk with two drawers on each side, sat in the corner against the wall to the right of the door. James opened the drawers, finding lined, graph, and plain paper note books and notepads, along with several pens and mechanical pencils in the drawers to the right. In the left drawers, he found a sketchbook with colored pencils, an electronic pencil sharpener, and watercolor paints.

Closing the drawers, James looked through the walk-in closet, finding shelves and drawers for clothes. He left the closet, and turned to the only unopened door in the room. Cautiously, James opened the door. Finding a light switch, he flooded the room in light, finding a personal bathroom, with two sinks, a walk in shower, a closet, toilet, and tall mirrors above the sinks and in the shower.

James looked in the closet, finding stacks of towels in several sizes, a couple of bathrobes, a pair of slippers, and products for washing up. He closed the closet door, and wandered back into his bedroom having finished his exploring for the night.

A minute or two later, someone knocked on the door. A muffled voice requested permission, and James recognized the voice as Hela's. He got up, and opened the door to the sight of Hela in a forest green t-shirt, and black pajama bottoms.

Hela spoke. "Is everything okay?"

"Uh, yes. Thank you." James maintained a relaxed appearance, but inside he was shifting uncomfortably, unfamiliar with what he should do next.

"Goodnight, then. Remember that if you need anything, just ask. Wake me up if you need to. I'll be home tomorrow because tomorrow's Saturday." Hela leaned against the doorframe.

"Okay, then. Goodnight."

James softly shut the door, leaving it unlocked. He climbed into bed, pulling the down cover over him. Laying on his back, he closed his eyes, and let sleep carry him into oblivion.


End file.
